IthacaLit

A bird etched an insistent V in the skythat I took as a sign. You wore a green coatand I believed in the riverthat moved us.

At the blinkof sun on curled water,the ripple of branch snag,a startled consonant of now,I reached out my hand to you,as if a fish had broken the surface to sayThis hull I now call home.

Forgive me,perhaps the gesture was too slightfor its frail intent.

This is just to say:Yes, I swallowed you with my eyes,even as you rowed towards a different shore.But, I, I was there to see that moment you turnedto cast your eyes, like much mended nets,on me, then away againto the sweep of river behind us.The wind fractured with birdsong,and the sky either threatened or promised,we’ll never know which.

June Sylvester Saraceno is the author of two poetry collections, of Dirt and Tar released in 2014 by Cherry Grove Collections, and Altars of Ordinary Light, as well as a chapbook of prose poems, Mean Girl Trips. Her work has appeared in various journals including Poetry Quarterly, Southwestern American Literature, and Tar River Poetry. She is English program chair at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe, as well as MFA faculty, and founding editor of the Sierra Nevada Review. For more information visit June Saraceno.